Page 40 of The Vipers' Vow

I want to believe my dad wouldn’t have someone I care about murdered, but honestly, he’s capable of anything.

Glancing at my watch, I realize we ought to be heading back if we’re going to have time to wash up and change for the meal. I need a shower. I’m feeling hot and sticky after the long ride here. I want to wash the road out of my hair. I also desperately need some time with the damn plug out of me. I know I could disobey Saint and just take it out, but I won’t…can’t. He holds a strange sway over me, and when he ordered me to do this, it gave me such an illicit thrill. All this time, talking to the bikers, with that thing in me, it’s depraved and degrading, and so Saint.

I turn to Zane. “Let’s head back.”

He nods. I want to hold his hand, but if we walk toward the buildings like that and get seen, he could be in trouble. It’s not worth putting him at risk just so we can make a statement.

I get back to my room. Zane has gone to the cabin my dad has had set up, so he can shower, too. It was a long ride, and we both need to freshen up before we eat tonight.

It’s so strange being back here, in the bedroom of my childhood. That it was my room only a short time ago feels bizarre too. It’s like I left my childhood behind the moment I stepped inside Verona Falls University. There are posters from my beloved rock bands attached to the walls, and on the dresser is a pink ballerina jewelry box my mom gave me when I was little. I think she’d been hoping I’d grow up into a girly-girl, but considering the environment she’d raised me in, that was unlikely to happen. Still, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to get rid of it, and I probably never will.

I take out my phone and glance at the time. It’s seven forty-five, and I am going to be late for dinner. Despite this fact, and on a whim, I decide to call Saint again. I’d tried him briefly earlier, but didn’t get an answer, and he hasn’t tried to return my call. I want to know he’s okay. I’m nervous, for some reason, as it begins to ring. He’d seemed off somehow during the last few hours I spent with him and Zane. I know his twin is being held captive, but it seemed more than that. As if he was angry with me. I wonder if it is because I brought Zane instead of him. Or does he blame me for Lex being taken?

I remember he’s so messed up, he was sneaking regularly into my room to watch me sleep. He touched me; I know he did. Those mornings I woke up, sticky between my thighs, feeling a little swollen and thinking I’d had a nice dream, had all been him. What did he do to me, while I was asleep, unaware? I should hate him for it, but it gives me a sick, dangerous thrill.

Wanting to speak with him and reassure him that he’s still on my mind, I nibble my thumbnail. It rings, two, three times, and then he cuts it off. I know Saint’s phone rings out way longer than that, so he must have intentionally not picked up.

Angry, pissed that he’s playing games at a time like this, I call back, intending to give him a piece of my mind, but it goes to his voicemail. I frown. What the hell? Now my anger morphs to worry. What if something has happened to him? Would Jarl send his men back into the college to pick up the other twin? He must know I’m no longer there because I’m trying to get the cross back.

No, it can’t be that. The college will be on high-security alert after earlier, and how would Jarl even know Saint didn’t come with us?

It’s more likely that Saint is just sulking.

I’ll tell Zane, and we can try him again later.

I shower, dry my hair roughly, and add some product, making it hang down my back in big waves, and put on some heavy eye liner, along with a nude lip gloss. I’m playing up the biker chick look tonight because I want Zane to see me for who I am, fitting in with the club and the only family I’ve ever known.

I want to find some time tonight to talk to Dad some more. I gave him space after I dropped that epic bombshell on him because I knew he’d need time to process, but I have questions. He said he and Mom were both messed up when they first met, but what did he mean by that?

Sighing, I open the top drawer in my dresser and pull out the skull on a chain my mom bought for me two birthdays back, when she’d finally accepted my love for all things dark and gothic. I didn’t take it to Verona falls in case I lost it. It’s gorgeous, thick, heavy, and real silver. It’s one of my most precious possessions, both because Mom bought it, and because I love how it looks aesthetically.

Fluffing my hair one last time and spritzing some Oud perfume on my throat, I head out of my room. I feel sexy tonight. And maybe part of me wants not only Zane but also the club and my father to finally see me as a grown woman. An adult. These men who avert their eyes as if they can’t see me have to realize I’m old enough to be seen as a person with agency.

Not that I want them to ogle me, but a bit of mutual respect wouldn’t go amiss. That includes my father. He needs to stop treating me like a kid, and perhaps, if I show him I can be an adult about the things I’ve learned about Mom, that will be part of it, too.

I wonder what he’s going to say about the cross. Is he going to hand it over willingly, all to get some man to safety who he doesn’t even know, or is he going to put up a fight?

I reach the large hall where we’ll be eating.

The noise hits me first. Raucous laughter and chatter and the clink of beer bottles slamming together. People fill almost all the seats of the long table. Ol’ Ladies sit in the laps of the bikers, some others standing and chatting, twirling highly teased hairstyles around long, manicured nails. I spot my father seated at the head of the table, drinking a beer and hanging with Big Mike. I walk over to them, wondering how long Zane will be. It’s weird because this is my home, but I feel safer with Zane’s quiet, reassuring presence nearby.

My father turns his gaze to me, and I can’t read what’s in his eyes. It cuts me to realize we’ve become somewhat estranged ever since Mom passed. I don’t want that.Maybe you should have thought about that before you ran away, leaving him without his daughter only six months after his wife died, a small but vicious internal voice chides.

Shit, I did, didn’t I? Maybe I wasn’t only desperate to leave here to find Reagan, but also because I thought I could escape the pain. The loss. That was a stupid belief because you can’t outrun pain, it will always find you.

I glance at my father again and realize the chain isn’t around his neck. My heart skips a beat, and I wonder if he’s going to give it to me, or if he’s done something in a fit of rage like flush it down the toilet.

I stop beside his chair. “Hi, Dad.”

He rises and kisses me on the cheek. He smells like beer and cigarettes and gasoline, but I don’t mind.

His eyebrows draw in slightly as he takes in the sight of me. “Hello, Ivani. You look…”

“Nice?” I fill in helpfully.

Big Mike snorts into his beer, and my dad shoots him a look.

“Yeah, nice.”

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